Increasingly vehicles are equipped with satellite, cellular, and/or other vehicular communication systems. Such vehicular communication systems enable a vehicle to communicate with one or more remote devices, such as a laptop that is used by a mechanic at a repair facility or other authorized location. These remote devices establish secure connections with the vehicular communication system to gather information regarding the vehicle (e.g., mileage, engine temperature, oil level, and other operating information) or to enable or provision certain features on the vehicle (e.g., navigation services and on-call support).
Due to their mobile nature it is possible for unauthorized persons to gain control of a remote device (e.g., by theft or other illegitimate methods). The unauthorized individual may then take the remote device to another location, such as a parking lot, and use it to obtain information regarding a vehicle that they do not own, or to take other undesirable actions. This threat would be greatly reduced by preventing the remote device from acquiring data from, or configuring, a vehicle when the vehicle is not at an authorized location.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method for preventing the user of a remote device to request data from, or configure, a vehicle if the vehicle is not at an authorized location. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.